The National Weather Service confirmed Tuesday evening that an EF-1 tornado had passed through Hazel Crest, Homewood, Country Club Hills and Harvey Monday, while an EF-0 tornado hit Orland Park.
That brings the total of confirmed tornadoes that struck the south suburbs in Monday’s storms to three, with an EF-1 tornado with peak winds near 110 mph previously confirmed in Lansing.
“It’s an act of God,” said Nakita Cloud, spokesperson for Hazel Crest. “All the storms obviously are an act of God, but this one here was a lot more damage.”
Power outages were still widespread in Hazel Crest Wednesday morning, Cloud said, and the village was urging residents to stay inside as much as possible due to the number of downed power lines.
“Until they get those lines back up, I would say, I’m not a spokesperson for ComEd or anything, but I would think that it’ll probably be nearly impossible to get all the services up and running,” Cloud said.
In particular, she said, residents should make sure to keep an eye on their pets and children to keep them away from any potentially live power lines.
“They probably don’t notice that a lot of those trees are mixed with power lines,” Cloud said. “Tell the kids this is not the area to play in. … I know I was a child and I liked to climb things. This is not that.”
The tornado that struck Homewood and Hazel Crest had a particularly complex track, and details are still being finalized, the National Weather Service said.
“As far as the cleanup goes and all, good Lord,” said Homewood Mayor Rich Hofeld. “Traffic signals are still out in many intersections. Still, a great portion of the town is without electricity. It’s still pretty hard hit.”
Hofeld said the Homewood Village Hall, fire and police stations were operating on generators, and some senior facilities still did not have power as of early Wednesday morning.
“People that are on medical devices, things of that type, hopefully have given their information to ComEd so they can try to get them back up as quickly as possible,” Hofeld said.
Hofeld said while Homewood had seen plenty of damage to structures from fallen trees, direct wind damage to structures was less severe than in Hazel Crest and Lansing, where in some instances buildings lost roofs to high winds.
“We’re all in it together,” Hofeld said. “The people in Homewood, the people in the south suburbs are wonderful. We’re all helping one another, we’re there for one another, and we understand it’s Mother Nature, and there isn’t a heck of a lot that can be done.”
Hofeld and other village residents said Monday’s damage was worse than the last time Homewood was struck by a tornado, in 2024.
“That was in a specific area, it wasn’t widespread like this,” Hofeld said. “This is so widespread. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Homewood shared a survey for residents to fill out if they suffered damage to their homes. The survey will be open until Aug. 5, the village said.
The American Red Cross opened a shelter in Steger at the Louis Sherman Community Center, 3501 Hopkins St., after the storms, providing a space for people displaced to sleep, eat and charge their phones and laptops.
Fay Kiaurakis, the center’s director, said 25 people had stayed overnight Monday night, and about 30 stayed overnight Tuesday. Over 100 people came in and out during the day Tuesday, she estimated.
“I’ve been calling everywhere and talking to everybody I can,” Kiaurakis said. “I’ve been calling the county, Cook and Will, to try to find some sort of housing situation for some of these people. A couple of these people are from Hazel Crest, where the roofs got pulled off.”
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Kiaurakis, a Steger resident, was trying to deal with storm damage from a downed tree at her own home when she got the call the Red Cross would set up at the community center, she said.
“My tree in my backyard, my neighbor said she saw, it exploded,” Kiaurakis said. “It hit my house, my car, the wire that was attached to my house for electricity.”
Midday Wednesday, a Verizon truck pulled up to provide more charging stations for people at the shelter. A sign on the wall advertised times for breakfast, lunch and dinner, while people drank free coffee and looked through donated clothes.
“We had an overwhelming response from the community with clothes,” Kiaurakis said. “It was amazing.”
Kiaurakis said that it was important to her to make sure the potentially traumatic experience of displacement wasn’t too scary for the children that came to the shelter with their families.
“I have a splash pad outside that we put up yesterday, we’re going to be putting up again today,” Kiaurakis. “I was homeless as a kid myself, my dad got hurt, so I know how important it is for the little kids to think of it more like a vacation.”
Kiaurakis said the shelter will operate until at least Friday, at which time the Red Cross will assess the situation and see if they need to stay longer.
“All of our programs are suspended,” Kiaurakis said. “We’re a Red Cross station now.”
Crete resident Seldon Ledford and his wife, Deborah, were at the shelter Wednesday to eat and charge their phones because the power was still out in their home and their basement was flooded. Ledford said it was the first time in 23 years that his home had flooded.
“This is probably the worst storm in the last 30 years, in Chicago,” Ledford said.
The two were visiting Deborah’s mother when the storm hit Monday, they said. The power at the senior apartment complex where she lived was also still out as of Wednesday morning, Ledford said.
“You couldn’t even see out the windows,” he said. “It’s got metal sliding doors, at the back of the apartment, and that wind was blowing so hard it was blowing underneath them.”
Orland Park Mayor Jim Dodge said that power was mostly back online as of Wednesday morning in his community. In the area around and west of 143rd Street and West Avenue, which suffered particularly severe damage due to having a large number of mature trees, 600 to 1,000 residents were still without power, he said.
“We have not had any verifiable reports from anyone of a funnel cloud, per se, but the weather service did say it was a tornado,” Dodge said. “So I guess it got to that level that they would declare from the damage. Whether it’s straight line winds or a tornado, there’s plenty of parts of Orland got impacted pretty hard.”
Dodge said he was incredibly relieved no one was hurt or killed and that the structural damage did not seem too severe.
“You hear about these towns that get a funnel cloud touchdown and it’s just death and destruction for 12 miles, like what happened up in Wisconsin,” Dodge said. “I am so lucky and thrilled that that didn’t happen in Orland.”
Everyone he’s talked to has said Monday’s storm is the worst they’ve seen come through Orland Park, Dodge said.
“This is far closer than I wanted it to be for a bad summer storm,” Dodge said.
Dennis Murrin, Lansing’s village preparedness coordinator, said the most significant damage in Lansing was in the several blocks around the Oakwood Estates.
“The streets are open in that general area,” Murrin said. “We’re hoping residents or people don’t use that area as much to allow for the cleanup to continue.”
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Murrin said that so far as he knew, Lansing had never been struck by a tornado.
“I started this position in May, I was here for the June storm, which was a lot of wind and branches down, but this is obviously way more severe than that,” Murrin said. “We’ve had our share of storms, but I think this by far has been the worst.”